Meta Corp is in talks to build a new data center campus for its artificial intelligence (AI) business, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The media reported, citing the above-mentioned people familiar with the matter, that Meta executives have notified data center developers that the company is considering locations such as Louisiana, Wyoming or Texas, and that senior leaders have visited potential construction sites this month.
One of the people said the cost could exceed $200 billion, depending on the number of chips and the power usage of the campus the company is discussing.
Now, when we talk about data center size, the industry typically doesn't measure it in square footage, but in megawatts, because the amount of power a site uses is a better measure of its ability to generate revenue than its actual size.
According to the report, Meta executives believe that the data center may eventually require 5-7GW (gigawatts) of power supply. However, according to media calculations, it may take more than five years for Meta to achieve sufficient power supply for the proposed park.
By comparison, OpenAI plans to have 8 gigawatts of capacity for Stargate projects by 2030. For comparison, as of the end of 2023, the power capacity of Microsoft's entire Azure cloud business will be approximately 5 gigawatts.
It should be noted that Meta has never mentioned a plan to build such a large-scale data center campus before, which will be several times larger than the AI data center Meta CEO Zuckerberg discussed in Louisiana last month. He said at the time that the company planned to spend $65 billion this year to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Some analysts believe that these discussions indicate that Meta is preparing for a surge in demand for generative artificial intelligence. It was previously reported that the company is preparing to offer artificial intelligence chatbots across all its apps, which will bring billions of users.
In addition, it may also indicate that Zuckerberg may spare no effort to catch up with rival OpenAI, which has launched a joint venture with SoftBank and plans to invest $500 billion over four years to build new AI data centers.
Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, investment in artificial intelligence has surged as companies across industries strive to incorporate artificial intelligence into their products and services.
The Great Leap Forward of Digital Infrastructure
Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta have recently stated that after record spending in 2024, they will further increase investment in 2025 and are expected to invest a total of US$320 billion in AI technology and data center construction. By comparison, the Big Four's total capital expenditures in 2024 are $230 billion.
Amazon claimed that total capital expenditures across all businesses are expected to increase to more than US$100 billion this year, and said that most of the increase will be for AI, up from US$83 billion in 2024;
Microsoft said it plans to invest $80 billion in AI data centers in fiscal 2025, and that spending will increase further next year, although the growth rate will slow down;
Google parent company Alphabet also said it is accelerating investment in AI data centers, with capital expenditures this year increasing from US$52.5 billion in 2024 to approximately US$75 billion.
It's unclear whether Meta will build the facility itself, contract with an outside developer, or partner with a cloud computing provider such as Oracle or CoreWeave to help build and operate it.
Based on past experience, Meta will use its own data center and rent AI servers from cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Oracle.